Dr. Sandeep Gupta discusses Mold Toxins and Chronic Illness with Dr. Ben Weitz.

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Podcast Highlights

3:36  Dr. Sandeep Gupta explained that he fell into the field of mold toxins and chronic illness by accident based on a personal experience.  In 2012 his home was flooded and his partner became ill from mold toxicity and was so sick that she was unable to function normally and was unable to do anything except lying around all day.  He found out about Dr. Richie Shoemaker and he arranged to be trained by Dr. Shoemaker remotely.  He ended up having to do the training at 1:00 or 2:00 am via Skype.  It was a steep learning curve and Dr. Shoemaker sent him a 1000 page document to read to start with.  It was a difficult learning process and now his goal is to simplify the concepts and information so that more patients and practitioners can have access to it.

7:45  Dr. Gupta explained that what tends to make him suspect that a patient may have an underlying mold problem and Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS) is when they have a multi-system illness, meaning that they may have some superficial symptoms like cough or sinus congestion and also some bloating and abdominal pain and diarrhea, and also joint pain, and fatigue, and difficulty sleeping and some skin rashes, etc.  Another clue is a lack of response to nutritional therapies, such as a typical set of Functional Medicine protocols.  They are on a healthy diet. They’ve improved their gut. They’ve fixed mineral and nutritional deficiencies and improved their omega 3/6 balance, etc., and they are still sick. That’s when you start thinking there must be an inflammatory trigger.

12:35  When you have a patient who has done all these lifestyle things to improve their health and are taking a good regimen of nutritional supplements and they are still not well, this is when you should start looking at their history and see if there might be some environmental toxin like mold that is playing a role in their condition.  You need to do an environmental history, but Dr. Gupta has found that if you simply ask someone if they live in a moldy home, they will tend to say no, because they don’t want anyone to think that they don’t clean their home. They might take that question as an insult. So Dr. Gupta found he had to be more subtle and ask questions like, how old is the building? Has there been a history of water events or hurricanes or flooding. Have there been any leaks in the roof or around washing machines or refrigerators or under the sink or in the bathroom or in the basement or in the crawl space?  The other big thing is if how do they feel when they go away from their home for a period of time?  If they feel better when they leave for a weekend trip, that would be a clue.

15:32  The next step is to do a thorough examination and look at their tongue, their nails, and at their skin.  Do a brief neurological examination and ask them to hold their arms out straight and if they have a tremor, that may be a sign of an elevated TGF beta 1.  If they sit on one of those lattice back chairs and they get up and they still have the imprint of the chair on their back for some time, that’s called dermatographia, and that could be a sign of elevated C4A, which could indicate CIRS.  Dr. Gupta will also look for signs of Ehlers-Danlos spectrum disorder, by looking for signs of joint hypermobility.

19:15  The next thing to do is the Visual Contrast Sensitivity (VCS) test, which can be done online through SurvivingMold.com.